(as Mr. Panizzi observes) were the growths of a later age.

Nothing is told us by his biographers of the person of Boiardo: and it is
not safe to determine a man's _physique_ from his writings, unless
perhaps with respect to the greater or less amount of his animal spirits;
for the able-bodied may write effeminately, and the feeblest supply the
defect of corporal stamina with spiritual. Portraits, however, seem to be
extant. Mazzuchelli discovered that a medal had been struck in the
poet's honour; and in the castle of Scandiano (though "the halls where
knights and ladies listened to the adventures of the Paladin are now
turned into granaries," and Orlando himself has nearly disappeared
from the outside, where he was painted in huge dimensions as
if "entrusted with the wardenship") there was a likeness of Boiardo
executed by Niccolo dell' Abate, together with the principal events of
the _Orlando Innamorato_ and the _Æneid_.But part of these
paintings (Mr. Panizzi tells us) were destroyed, and part removed from
the castle to Modena" to save them from certain loss;" and he does not
add whether the portrait was among the latter.

From anecdotes, however, and from the poet's writings, we gather the
nature of the man; and this appears to have been very amiable. There is
an aristocratic tone in his poem, when speaking of the sort of people of
whom the mass of soldiers is wont to consist; and Foscolo says, that the
Count of Scandiano writes like a feudal lord. But common soldiers are not
apt to be the _elite_ of mankind; neither do we know with how goodnatured
a smile the mention of them may have been accompanied. People often give
a tone to what they read, more belonging to their own minds than the
author's. All the accounts left us of Boiardo, hostile as well as
friendly, prove him to have been an indulgent and popular man. According
to one, he was fond of making personal inquiries among its inhabitants